april 04, 2023 - Kunst Merano Arte

Mock-Up 1:1: Architectural Experiments Photographs by David K. Ross

Sparkassensaal / Sala Cassa di Risparmio, Kunst Meran #merano Arte

Opening: 7 pm on Friday, 14 April 2023

The opening will be accompanied by an artist talk with David K. Ross and Andreas Kofler (S AM).

Runtime: Saturday 15 April – Sunday 28 May 2023

In architecture, a “mock-up” is a materially accurate demonstration model that reproduces a section of a building in real scale and, ideally, as part of its future environment. The underlying intention is to understand the appearance and detailing of a project before the actual construction begins. In Switzerland a significant portion of a buildings’ construction sum goes into the accurate and laborious production of such objects. Especially when standard solutions can’t be adopted, the client or the building authority will request a verification on a 1:1 model. This costly practice is, however, adopted outside of Switzerland.

For architects, mock-ups are much more than objects of proof: they are not only used to convince and optimise, but also to research and innovate. They are usually photographed only in passing, but Canadian photographer and filmmaker David K. Ross has turned them into artistic objects. In his photo project Archetypes, begun in 2016, he portrays them as heroic monuments, but also as dreamlike and uncanny pseudo-architectures.

Deprived of context and anchored to the ground only by various supports or struts, the façade models in Ross’ photographs are reminiscent of stage sets. To achieve this dramatic appearance, the photographer has illuminated the mock-ups at night with the help of powerful flashes – with the chaotic, sometimes distracting context of the building site thus remaining hidden in the darkness. This systematic inventory has resulted in an archive that documents the realisation of numerous high-profile Swiss and international building projects, such as those of Christ & Gantenbein, Herzog & de Meuron or Caruso St John.

In 2021, the S AM Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel used the photo series of David K. Ross as the starting point for an exhibition to explore the extended potential of mock-ups between simulation and reality. The exhibition at Kunst Meran / #merano #arte, on the other hand, focuses on the critical interface between planning and execution – one that does not exist in either the regional or national context of South Tyrol or Italy. And poses the question: why not?